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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24187096">Sacrifice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgondagar/pseuds/Morgondagar'>Morgondagar</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Does Not Matter, Spoilers for MAG 167, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives), Suicide</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:09:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,127</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24187096</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morgondagar/pseuds/Morgondagar</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Case #0170507 Statement of Elias Bouchard, regarding the nascent death of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute. Currently unavailable. Details pulled directly from subject.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Sacrifice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don’t know if Jon can even die Without the help of other entities, but canon only matters if I want it to.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Statement of Elias Bouchard, regarding the nascent death of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute. Currently unavailable. Details pulled directly from subject. </p><p>Statement begins.</p><p>The Archivist is pacing his small apartment in central London, hands nursing his head as fingers grasp his unwashed and neglected hair. The evening is as eventful as a major capital city is on a Friday night; cars going by, patrons singing loudly in the pubs, old lovers reconnecting in hopes of rekindling a dead flame and restless souls wander the streets. In many ways, the city is yet calmer than the inside of the Archivist’s own head. </p><p>Inside, the statement he stumbled upon this morning is still swirling around, the words twisting and turning as Gertrude Robinson’s written findings makes home inside his brain. It’s unfortunate that he found the text, read it too quick for his boss to realise the danger it would create. But such is life, and new Archivists are always around the corner. </p><p>
  <i>’And even stranger, when Angus Stacey died and she had the chance to walk away, she decided to remain.’</i>
</p><p>He has been reading those words over and over since this morning, first without much purchase, then realising their meaning. It was a decision he had no idea he had to make, now trying hard to wrap his head around it as his feet pad over the carpeted floor. <i>Thud, thud, thud.</i></p><p>It’s when he makes the decision that he finally lets his arms rest, falling limply alongside his frail body. His eyes are still closed, but he doesn’t need to see where he is going, already familiar enough with his old apartment to walk over to the window facing the street. A sigh leaves the man as he let’s his eyes rest upon the busy city below, seven stories up from where a group of university students makes their way from one bar to the other, a single mother hurries home to her sleeping sons and pigeons picks at a dead rat in the neglected alleyway. </p><p>Jonathan’s eyes focuses in on his reflection in the glass. He notices for the first time in weeks the bags under his eyes, the hair knotted upon his shoulders and just how much weight he has lost in his face. His cheeks no longer have a soft angle to them, all sharp and sad. </p><p>With trembling hands, the archivist reaches for the hasp, clicking it out of place with ease. He fleetingly wonders just why it’s so easy to fling the window from it’s frame, thinking it should be far more secured considering the height of which it’s installed. Perhaps it’s just this one. Perhaps it was just meant for him to open.</p><p>When the wind hits his face, Jon doesn’t flinch. Instead he braces himself in a last effort to make things right. The sounds underneath does not reach his ears, the vivid illusions of his friends flashing before him instead.</p><p>He thinks of Sasha James, or what he can remember of her. It’s hard, traces of her former self gone from most of recorded history. But the archivist knows she was important to him, to Martin and especially to Tim. He wishes he had known this earlier, but also knows that without her death it wouldn’t have hit as hard. Perhaps he would still believe it all to be lies, still ignorant to the manifestations of fears and their avatars. He will never know. </p><p>Next is the image of Melanie King. She is trapped to the institute just like the rest, but her hatred is far more obvious. Jon wonders if she will ever know what he will do for her, resides in the fact that at least he is doing something. His thoughts doesn’t linger too long, instead shifting to Officer Basira Hussain. He knows she has found herself the best in the situation, her calm and stoic personality not letting her show others how deeply affected she is. It’s with a determined smile Jon hopes Basira will not be stuck there forever, instead having a chance to move on with her career.</p><p>Alice Tonner comes naturally after that, Jon closing his eyes for a second as he thinks. Without him, the Hunt will have no reason to come forth, Daisy able to finally leave the scars behind her. It’s worth it, he decides.</p><p>Pain flares up inside of the archivist when the memories of Timothy Stoker comes up. Depression and anger now clouding the once carefree man, dripping off him in a viscous trail wherever he goes. The man hadn’t locked eyes with Jon in a week, refusing to as much as stay in the same room as the archivist if allowed to leave. He had sought out the institute in pursuit of his brother Danny Stoker, now locked inside with the memories and knowledge that he will never escape this hell. Except Jonathan knows a way and he is willing to do anything to let Tim be happy again, to smirk like the old days as his heart mends back into something it once was. </p><p>Bare feet graze the bricked wall on the outside of the building, the archivist now sitting on the windowsill. He begins to change his mind, the fall greater than he had anticipated, yet doesn’t wiggle his way inside again. Jon stares down into the pavement, for once grateful over the sickly weather of a British autumn; fog obscuring his frame from the onlookers down below. </p><p>His hands loosen from the deathly grip on the window frame, fingers lingering for only a moment before nursing one another in his lap. Anxiety has always been part of the young man, only now silent enough for him to think. </p><p>The smile of Martin Blackwood is the last thing he sees before closing his eyes, toppling himself over effortlessly. He thinks, no, he knows that the man now had a chance to be free. It was no life down in the archives, Martin deserving more than the solitude and fear awaiting him. If Jon had any wish, it would be to once more hear that recorded poem from the small tape recorder he had found, Martin’s voice soothing him instead of the wind flying by his ears.</p><p>And so Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute died, his body found within seconds as a drunken student shrieks. The ambulance arrives mere minutes later, the man dead before hitting the ground. </p><p>You were an accomplished archivist, Jon. It’s a shame you lost track too early. Still, I am to blame for being careless with my own filing, obviously not able to hide some of the old files well enough for a keen eye like yours. Rest well, Jonathan Sims. </p><p>Statement ends.”</p>
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